Inspiring the Reluctant Artists or Art Makers in your Art Classroom

Art teachers, we know encouraging students to make art can sometimes happen easily and other times, it’s a challenge. You bring out, act out, or show your “hook” and BAM! They’re engaged and are wanting to do their best. Depending on the age or the student’s own personal experience with creating art, this is sometimes a challenge and you might even get a complete refusal. As a teacher, it is our job to encourage a student to create. After many years of experience teaching, and having taught art to students from Kindergarten to Grade 12, I have a few tricks up my sleeve in terms of getting ALL your students to create art, even if they really don’t want to. Let’s look at ideas for how to inspire the reluctant artists and art makers in your classroom.